pagoda was the rallying point for the Burman 'defenders'. Major Seagrass had not objected when Hervey had asked if he might accompany the Eighty-ninth, and so he now stood, with Corporal Wainwright, next to the two ensigns carrying the regiment's cased colours, waiting for the gates at the northern end of the stockade to be swung open. He was not greatly apprehensive, for like the Eighty-ninth he was only too glad to be unconfined at last. On the other hand he was at a loss to know why the general had not ordered a reconnaissance during the night. It was but normal practice after all. Someone had said the reason was that the fires would have lit up anyone moving outside the stockade. But the flames had been doused by three o'clock, and the pagoda was little more than a league distant.
The commanding officer's orders had been straightforward. The battalion would advance in column of route by companies, the light leading, and in double time for the first mile or until contact with the enemy was made (in the cool of the dawn doubling would be no hardship). On meeting the enemy's pickets, the light company would deploy to skirmish and the others in column of companies would take the position with the bayonet.
The men looked eager, even on a breakfast of biscuit and rum. Corporal Wainwright had spoken to several of them as they formed up: it seemed there were many Irish, that some had fought on the Niagara frontier a decade before, but for the most part the battalion had not been shot over. 'I have never marched in a regular advance by infantry/ said Hervey, looking about him at the novel order.
'I don't think I care for it much in truth, sir,' replied Corporal Wainwright, unclipping the carbine from his crossbelt. 'You can't see anything in these ranks, just the man in front.'
It was true, although in the dark there was little enough to see beyond the man in front. 'Yes,' said Hervey, drawing on his gloves. 'From a horse there's a good view of things. And a troop of them now would be worth their while. That is for sure.'
The great gates at last swung open. Commanding voices front and rear animated the ranks. 'Company, atte-e- nshun!' 'Trail arms!' Hervey took up his sabre scabbard. 'Company will advance. By the front, double march!'
The battalion company in front set off as one -an impressive feat, thought Hervey, since breaking off at the trot was always a ragged affair with cavalry.
'Colour party, double march!' barked the senior ensign.
The two ensigns and their serjeant-escorts took off in step with Number One Company, colours now uncased and at the slope, the commanding officer and serjeant-major to a flank, and Hervey and Wainwright to the rear.
Hervey found it surprisingly easy to keep time. Serjeants called out continuously and with such authority that to break step would have required a marked will. He had not marched to a Serjeant's command since joining the depot troop as a new-minted cornet straight from school. There was something of a comfort in it: no need at all to think. But that was the purpose of drill, was it not, to make a man act as if he were a machine, oblivious to all else? And Hervey for one was pleased to be relieved of the need to think too much this morning. He had slept little. There had been a continual coming and going at General Campbell's headquarters during the night, and at one stage there had been a general alarm, with reports that Burman soldiers were observed creeping up on the stockade from the west. But it had proved false. And then there had been another alarm when one of the bamboo cottages near the headquarters had burst into flame, for no reason that the sentries could see. It had been past four o'clock, by his reckoning, when he had at last fallen into a good sleep, only to be woken by Corporal Wainwright at five with tea and a bowl of hot shaving water – exactly as Private Johnson had instructed.
After five minutes the companies changed to quick time, and sloped arms – prudently, thought Hervey, for the eastern sky was now lightening. He had walked these paths before, so to speak: the affair at the river, three years ago. How determined he had been to time the moment of the attack perfectly with the appearance of the sun above the jungle canopy. Almost a ritual, it had been, like the sun rising at the stone circle on the great plain at home in Wiltshire.
It was curious how marching freed the mind to wander. How many hours more would they have to wait in Wiltshire before this same sun rose on them? And how did it rise on his daughter? Did it fall directly on her, or did it light her room only indirectly? Did she wake to see it? Did she fear the dark when it was gone? How strange not to know the answers to such simple questions. But it had been five years, almost, since last he had seen her. Her first letter he carried in the pouch of his crossbelt, along with Henrietta's likeness, though he had taken neither from their oilskin in a year.
The sky was heavier than that day at the river. There was rain to come; they all knew it. But when? He looked back towards the town. A pall of smoke hung over the greater part of it, and, mean as the place was, he thought it as sorry a sight as at Badajoz or Vittoria, or any other of the Spanish towns that had fallen prey to the revels of the drunken soldiery in their celebration of victory. The Duke of Wellington had cursed the army often enough – the Sixth not excepted – for being too drunk to follow up victory. And usually the men had resented it; officers too. They had had to make long, wearying marches; they had had to fight desperately; they had lost friends; they thought they had earned their rowdy ease.
Not since Waterloo had Hervey been surrounded by so many redcoats, and even that day he was first amidst his own regiment (and at the very end in their van). It felt different from being in ranks of blue. Yet their common bond was discipline, the prime requirement of an army, for without it no other quality was guaranteed. Could it really be the lash that guaranteed these men's good order? Were the Eighty-ninth, and for that matter every other battalion of infantry of the Line, so different from his own?
The Sixth abhorred the lash. They had abhorred it since before he had joined. They took it as a point of pride that a dragoon was animated by something more noble than fear of a flogging. But the duke had always supported the lash, and his judgement had been long in the forming, and tested in the worst circumstances. He held that without it all the lesser punishments could not have effect. 'Who would bear to be billed up but for the fear of a stronger punishment?' Hervey had once heard him say. 'He would knock down the sentry and walk out!' And had he not heard many a man in the old light division say that Crauford had flogged them through the mountains to Vigo, and that had he not done so they would never have got there? But how far would men acknowledge that the lash kept them alive when the going became desperate? And did General Campbell have the determination to see the expedition through to Ava, as 'Black Bob' Crauford had seen the retreat through Galicia?
'Company will break into double time; double march!' In another five minutes there was but a half-mile to go, and it was light enough to make out Shwedagon's soaring dome. Hervey thought it unlikely that the Burmans would have abandoned it unless they had no intention at all of fighting.
'It's like piss-proud Pat of a Sunday morning,' came a voice from the ranks behind. A welter of reproach followed from an NCO.
'D'ye think there'll be much gold, Serjeant?' came another voice.
'Stick to the drink, Mick. You won't have to carry it as far!'
'He can't hold on to either for long!' came yet another voice from the ranks.
Hervey smiled. The banter was not so very different from the Sixth's, though he did not doubt the capacity for riot in the Eighty-ninth's wild Irish ranks. It was as well that its NCOs brooked no disorder.
There was a shot. Then half a dozen others. A couple of hundred yards ahead? It was difficult to tell. Hervey felt the momentum check just a fraction. Then came the shouting – quick time! – and the companies breaking from the double march. Serjeants barked out the step – left, right, left, right; pick it up' The ensigns raised the colours. The commanding officer took off for the front of the column. Runners began coming and going. The thrill of action flashed through the ranks like a quickmatch. It would have been the same in the Sixth, thought Hervey – but perhaps more so here, for the ranks were tighter-packed, the men shoulder to shoulder rather than knee to knee. 'Skirmishers out!'
He heard the order ripple along the column. And then a bugle. He didn't recognize the call, supposing it must be for the light company. If they were deploying, it couldn't be many minutes before the battalion companies did the same.
'Number One Company, halt! Company will incline left; left incline! Company will form right, at the halt; right form!'
It took less than a minute for Number One Company to change from column of route to face front in two ranks, and with no more seeming effort than if they had been on parade. And this in spite of the semi-darkness and the broken ground. 'With ball cartridge, load!'
The best part of a hundred men reached as one into black leather pouches to take out a greased paper cartridge. They bit off the end, poured a little of the powder into the pan of the musket-lock, closed it, emptied the
